Bitrix24 Blogs

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Your business is running well, profits are growing, and you feel the urge. You want to push to the next level. How do you know it’s the right time? Check out these five signs it’s time to expand.

Your Finances Are Organized

Your financial records are filed. Your accounting system is set up completely and you know how to use it and you do use it. You know where your money is and you keep track of where it’s going. You make sure your bills get paid on time. You pay invoices before they come due. You negotiate with vendors for the best rates.

You’re either a whiz at accounting yourself, or you’ve hired a company accountant, or you have a great accountant on retainer. You know the numbers, and you watch (and can easily track) your bottom line.

We have recently released new Bitrix24 Drive and added quite a few new features to it. Here's what you can do with your Bitrix24 Drive now:

Share your documents All your work files can be stored and managed inside Bitrix24. Upload your reports, presentations, photos, contracts, documents and other files to “My Drive” and share them with other Bitrix24 users – simply choose access level permission for each employee or department (read, edit, full access):

Corbin Ball, CSP, CMP, DES, MS is an international speaker, consultant and writer helping clients worldwide use technology to save time and improve productivity. With 20 years of experience running international technology meetings, he now is a highly acclaimed speaker with the largest meetings tech site on the web.

1. What event management mistakes do you see people make over and over again?

This has nothing to do with technology, but it is a problem I see regularly: Receptions should be about networking (communicating with each other). Often times, loud music and other sounds make it impossible to carry on a conversation. At the minimum, quiet spaces should be available for those that wish to talk. I like to dance, but a higher priority for me at events is communication.

Many of the biggest barriers to productivity can be overcome with the simple act of asking for help.

Barriers to Productivity

The exact forces that conspire to derail your productivity are unique to you, your workplace, your personality, and what day of the week it is. There are, however, common obstacles to productivity that many of us face.

Accepting average. Average online marketing is the norm because it has become accepted. Online marketing is treated as something done once the tick mark is placed in the box. We check it off, and consider it complete. Average starts by fooling yourself into believing that the metrics of the platform or tool are more important than the reason you set out to market in the first place, to get customers.

Likes are not customers, tweets are not customers, clicks and impressions are not customers. They are not customers until they buy something. You need to break fr om the status quo and understand that showing up in Google is not success, likes are not the goal, and these things are the starting point, not the finish line.

We coined a term at my marketing company (Single Throw), “NOMAM” No More Average Marketing. NOMAM is more than a trademarked tagline, it’s a mantra that we live everyday across every project. Average won’t win, never has, never will.

Michael Podolinsky is Asia's Productivity Guru. For 33 years he's studied and taught productivity systems and techniques including Time and Stress Management, Managing Teams Productively, Facilitation Skills to get team members to open up and how to train, coach and mentor people.
He can be reached via his Website, on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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1. There are a lot of great tips regarding personal time management. But when you work with a group of people on a project, other team members can always drag you down. What can you do to ‘protect’ your project fr om people with less then ideal time management skills?

Deadlines fix most time related issues. Cyril Northcote Parkinson gave us Parkinson's law, "Every task will expand to the time allotted to it." Give a shorter time and have mile markers where they are responsible to submit work or to have completed a portion of the project and it will tend to keep them focused. With those who 'tend to be late', give them more mile markers and particularly towards the beginning of a project to develop the right momentum. Make sure up front they give their commitment to the project, not just lip service or you might as well find someone else to perform the task.

What you think you know about creativity might just be holding you back.

The Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Model Is Just Wrong

We've long used the distinction of being a left-brain or right-brain thinker as a cute little way to show that a) we're smart about brain stuff and b) we're either creative or not creative.
In our neurological model, the left brain was all about decisions and analysis, definitive thinking and action, absolutes and logic. It had nothing to do with the effervescent, visual, expansive, relational right brain of creativity.

This post is going to break down the business process that is developed in this video:

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This post contains all of the pertinent screenshots of the business process template.

First, there are a few notes that should be made:

1. There is already a Leave Request system in Bitrix24's onsite version. It is located under the Services section of the menu in the "Business Processes" menu item. In fact, the onsite version of Bitrix allows creation of business processes that are not based on lists or documents, but rather “object-less”.

2. The video emphasizes Lists and BPs, but incorporates several of Bitrix24's tools.

3. There is a "cleaned-up" version of the business process template that is downloadable from our Bitrix Gold partner. The bp as shown in the video has some rough edges.

Keeping your customers happy is no easy task. We talked to one of the world's leading customer service experts Chip Bell about what makes clients stay loyal and what obstacles companies face when trying to improve customer service:

1. It’s not exactly a secret that great customer service is a key to success to today’s hypercompetitive environment. People have been talking about this for years. Yet one can’t say that we’ve progressed a lot and customer service today is much better than, say, 20 years ago, at least as far as an average company is concerned. Why is that?

Blame it on Amazon, Disney, UPS, USAA, etc. who provide great experiences to customers. It has elevated the standard for "great customer service." After customers log on Amazon, they look at every other website through Amazon eyes. When the UPS delivery person walks fast delivering a customer's package, the USPS mail carrier gets painted with the same brush. Disney friendly raises the ante on the next receptionist or sales clerk the customer encounters. Another factor is the short term, quarter-to-quarter preoccupation some organizations have with the bottom line. Great customer service is an investment. And, there is not the quantitative cause and effect capacity to measure return that a company might have with adding a branch or new product. Yet, look at the organizations selected as the best customer service companies and they are also on the most profitable lists.

The beginning of a new year is a great time for resolutions. Better than resolutions, however, are simple but specific changes you can make right now that will help you make this a more productive year.

1. Think small, not big. We like to talk about big goals and big dreams. That's not a bad thing, but when we only look at the big picture, we can miss out on the small actions that we need to take on a daily basis.

You can work up your energy and motivation, and make a few great big leaps forward. However, it's far more effective to cultivate the habit of small but consistent progress.

Think of making regular bits of progress rather than huge surges toward your goal. You can't maintain the focus and energy required for those all-out effort. You can, however, maintain a tiny, daily habit or a weekly step forward. Break big goals into smaller goals, and then into tiny actions that you build into your daily routine.

It's okay to admit your limits. The sooner you do, the sooner you can start completing tasks instead of simply moving and managing tasks.

Limit your daily list to one to three important tasks that you must complete. You will gain immediate clarity. You know what you're supposed to do, and you can focus on it and let other things fade out. There will always be unplanned tasks and questions that come up in your day. You will have to handle those, but then you can go right back to the important tasks on your list without any hesitation.

Reaching good goals starts with knowing how to set the right goals for your team. Once you get the right goals in place, knowing how to lead your team to accomplish their goals set you up for even more success.

Team Goal Setting 101

Team PurposeAll goals for your team should come from your team's purpose. Clearly define your team's purpose, but don't stop there. Remind your team of the purpose often. Put the team purpose in team communications. Open meetings (and close them) with a reminder of the primary team purpose.

This kind of repetition seems childish, but it is very effective in management. Jack Welch, 20-year CEO of General Electric, said, "In leadership you have to exaggerate every statement you make. You’ve got to repeat it a thousand times." Repeating your team's purpose to yourself - and to your team - will help you all choose and focus on goals that line up with it.

What small business couldn't use a little more cash and a little less financial stress? Here are several ways to cut costs now so you can focus on growing your business.

1. Know where your money is going. The first way to save money is to know how you're spending it. If you are not intimately acquainted with your financial reports, now is the time to get friendly. Get a list of expenses and arrange by priority, then by cost. The low-priority, high-cost items are the ones you should immediately find ways to eliminate or reduce.

2. Research your options. That insurance plan, Internet service, or tech support you signed on for might have been the best option when you got it. Things change, however. Options appear. Got through your list of high-cost expenses and research new options that would reduce your costs. If you focus on researching one or two per week, you might find better, less-expensive options for a dozen of your highest expenses within a few months. Even if the savings on each expense are not huge, the cumulative effect of small savings on a dozen expenses adds up to big reduction in expenses.

Remote staff benefit fr om the flexibility and self-direction they have in their jobs; but they can also be at a distinct disadvantage if they feel disconnected.

It's important to make sure that your remote workers are not only equipped, but engaged and aware, fully part of the team.

1. Hold regular team meetings with all staff.

A regular meeting offers all the staff, both on-location and remote, a chance to stay connected with each other and with the team leader. If you want your team to work together well, this is not an optional exercise. Use the time to review goals, explain areas of focus, set agendas and timelines, get input and reports, and discuss any issues or ideas.

Choose a regular time: weekly, bimonthly, or monthly could work. Set it as a recurring event so that everyone can put it on their calendars.

Limit the meeting time: there's nothing wrong with a bit of socializing (in fact, that's kind of the point) but if you let the meeting eat up more than 60 - 90 minutes, people will start to resent the loss of valuable work time. Respect everyone's time by setting a clear starting and ending point, and sticking to them.

2. Set up virtual break rooms and command centers.

What remote staff tend to miss out on are the "unofficial" interactions that take place, daily, in an office environment. Help them find a meaningful way to interact by setting up a virtual “break room,” such as an instant message service used by all team members.